Case study on how the open-source Daml smart contract language could be used to improve a real-world software incident management event involving multiple companies and compliance tracking.
An unexpected error accessing a network license server prevented 130 globally distributed employees from accessing a core software, halting business-critical operations.
A full uninstallation and reinstallation was the only known recourse, but had been prohibited due to a coincidental, ongoing audit by the software vendor to check for compliant use of purchased licenses.
A solution agreed between parties was to collect device data (local environment details), seek device-based approval from the software vendor to make modifications, and only then perform the necessary reinstallation.
This resolution workflow required a combination of Jira, Google Sheets, Google Drive, AWS S3, and PowerShell to manage data collection and approval status for each employee, resulting in over 200 hours of work to manually exchange compliance information between parties and platforms.
Multi-party workflow to resolve software outage, including compliance review and approval by software vendor:
To implement a Smart Contract solution in Daml, 3 contract templates are created to reflect general milestones in the overall process:
- Device Data Collection
- Device Review & Approval
- Device Software Reinstallation
Each contract is recreated to represent updated data such as status changes, while completing a milestone triggers the creation of the next related contract type.
| Contract Templates | Parties | Data |
|---|---|---|
DeviceDataDeviceApprovalDeviceReinstallation |
UserDesign TechCorp. ITSoftware Vendor |
UserDetailsDeviceDataStatusDeviceApprovalStatusDeviceReinstallationStatusApprovers |
A script within the module SoftwareReinstallCompliance.daml executes this full sequence for an example user.
By channeling the user status tracking into a chain of smart contracts, the dissemination of information is automated, approvals can be sequenced and trusted across parties, and a clear history of actions remains immutable for future compliance efforts.
References
Daml smart contract language, originated by Digital Asset